Insurance Claim Advice

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Wed 19 Jul 2006 21:24
Insurance Claim Advice - Rudedog
I recently had a costly collision with a foreign LHD lorry in this country (lorry pulled into my lane and hit my rear passenger side, I had a witness and as it happens the police were nearby and so helped me collect all of the drivers details). My car is waiting to be repaired and I will have to stump up the excess (£400) when I pick it up, I hope to recover this because I have legal cover and I?m claiming it as uninsured losses.
The big BUT is that the lorry driver is from a non-EU country (Romania) and I have been lead to believe that it will be nearly impossible to recover my money.
Has anyone had any experience of this? Or can give me some advice.
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Thu 20 Jul 2006 00:20
Insurance Claim Advice - jdc
I'll check at work for you tomorrow (RAC) and let you know how we would deal with this...

We have a dedicated European team but for non-EU I'm not sure,


jdc
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Thu 20 Jul 2006 02:46
Insurance Claim Advice - Grenache
Hmm... I'm not an expect in this field, but can offer two bits of info.

It's possible that the foreign driver has just the basic minimum legal cover, (for injury to third parties) and won't have cover for vehicle damage - that's the level of cover for UK policies in some countries unless you pay extra before going abroad.

Secondly (I work regularly in Romania), one of my colleagues there had his car written off, the other driver was completely at fault. The other driver's insurance only paid out half of the value of my colleague's car, beacuse that was the limit of cover the other driver had paid for. My colleague was quite upset, to put it mildly, and considered sueing for the remainder, but the other driver did not have enough assets to make it worthwhile.

Hope you get it sorted, though

Best regards

Ken
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Thu 20 Jul 2006 19:32
Insurance Claim Advice - jdc
Checked out at work today.

Cover for Romania is covered under a European claim (if you are insured with one of the NU or RAC products) and a dedicated European team would chase this up for you with agents in the specified country. Although Romania is not technically EU, it is covered under the 'Green Card' countries.

Speaking to a colleague on this team, he stated they have not had many problems recovering standard costs from Romania and most, if not all, of the HGV claims like this have been straightforwad, if not time-consuming.

There are many small, interesting-sounding countries covered like this, like many of the former Soviet Union countries (Kaliningrad for example....)

jdc

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Thu 20 Jul 2006 20:46
Insurance Claim Advice - Rudedog
Thanks, that reassures me.
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